Gaborone – Early this year, Orange Money Botswana and EcoCash launched a new partnership to enable better and more affordable access to digital money transfers between Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Powered by TransferTo’s global mobile payments network, this service now allows Zimbabwean diaspora, living in Botswana, to use their Orange Money digital wallet to send money back home to family and friends, in real-time, directly into an EcoCash mobile wallet.

Remittances represent a very important source of income for Zimbabwe, powering significant social and economic developments across the country. For the over 600,000 Orange Money subscribers, this convenient new service offers a unique payments experience enabling quick, simple and more affordable money transfers between digital wallets, providing an alternative option to traditional means of sending money across borders. And by advocating the use of mobile money, this partnership is ultimately helping to alleviate poverty through better financial management and as well, powering economic growth for communities.

Dr Patrick Benon, CEO of Orange Botswana said; “As part of our broader financial inclusion and diversification strategy, Orange Money seeks to expand its services to offer a cheaper, secure and more convenient International Money Transfer payment infrastructure from Botswana to the whole Southern Africa region and beyond”.

To kick start this strategy, Orange Money has partnered with EcoCash Zimbabwe to launch International Money Transfer to Zimbabwe. This service will enable better and more affordable access to digital money transfers between Zimbabwe and Botswana. The partnership is aligned to our innovation efforts aimed at offering our customers more cost-effective solutions to facilitate both cross-border and domestic money transfers.” said Dr Benon.

Dr Benon further highlighted that this new partnership represents convenience at its best and since the introduction of the service the company has realised a steady growth in the number of Orange Money subscribers who are of Zimbabwean origin.

Peter De Caluwe, CEO of TransferTo, said, “We are extremely delighted to be working together with Orange Money Botswana and EcoCash in Zimbabwe to help them expand their product portfolio to provide their customers with better access to real-time mobile money transfer services.”

“With this partnership, we have an amazing opportunity to help meet the growing demand for alternative digital financial solutions in Africa and offer a cheaper, secure and more convenient payment infrastructure through which digital transfers are performed”, said Mr De Caluwe.

Eddie Chibi, CEO of Cassava Fintech Zimbabwe said: “This partnership will enable Zimbabweans in Botswana to remit funds to friends and family back home as we drive towards creating financial inclusion on the continent of Africa.”

“We continue to expand and accelerate our efforts to create innovations that allow direct transfers between digital wallets, and so taking cross-border transfers to a whole new level. Our goal is to provide our customers with simple but effective solutions which give them the convenience they need, as well as being a conduit for economic development wherever we operate.

“In addition, all recipients of funds remitted via EcoCash are guaranteed to access it in cash. We have guaranteed cash for our customers in Zimbabwe and it’s something for our customers and partners to be excited about.”

This launch marks the first ever hub-enabled cross-operator service for Orange Money in Africa. The service is now live and more information can be found at www.orange.co.bw.